General Leave

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. We are here today because Washington Democrats have gotten together and decided to use a global pandemic as an excuse to check a few items off their progressive wish list. They want to reward their political allies at the expense of America's working class.

If this bailout is about crushing the virus, then why does less than 9 percent actually go towards putting shots in people's arms?

If this bailout is about quickly reopening our schools, then why is less than 5 percent of the money for schools going to be spent this year?

If this bailout is about helping workers and families, then why does this plan continue to incentivize Governors to keep small businesses shut down?

Why does 25 percent of all spending go towards policies that will kill jobs and reduce hours worked?

Simply put, this is the wrong plan at the wrong time for all the wrong reasons. It is the wrong plan because Americans living on fixed incomes, including 31 million seniors who are on fixed Social Security, will be forced to pay more out of pocket to buy food, put clothes on their backs, and to keep the lights on. Seniors will now have to decide to turn on heat or pay for the needed medication.

It is the wrong time because Democratic economists and the Congressional Budget Office are warning that this spending isn't needed and that, by the middle of the year, our real GDP will have recovered and we will have our largest economic growth in 15 years.

It is the wrong time because when you combine this bill with the COVID-19 money that has already been enacted, the sum is more than the GDP of every country in the world except China and the United States, and $1 trillion of already enacted spending still remains.

So what is the reason for this bailout?

It is all about rewarding political allies and bailouts to blue States. Democrats even changed the funding formula to reward States that severely lock down their citizens and boarded up Main Street.

Using a pandemic to push things like the $15 Washington mandate, an expansion of ObamaCare, and billions on political payouts around this country is the real reason for this bailout.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to look beyond their agenda and think about the working class. They want the schools reopened, to be able to go back to work, vaccines to keep their families safe, and end to this pandemic. All of that can happen without this bailout plan if we focus on what the American people need and not what one political party desperately wants.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I will remind the gentleman from New York, if this bill is enacted, his State's 3 million seniors will face a cut to Medicare of $27 billion over the next 10 years.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman from California. I would just like to point out that, out of her 6 million seniors, this bill will cut $44 billion from Medicare over the next 10 years--10 years.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Pennsylvania. I will remind him that if this bill were enacted, his State's 2.7 million seniors would face a $17 billion cut in Medicare over the next 10 years.

Mr. Speaker, a recent letter from the Congressional Budget Office shows that if this bailout plan is enacted, the Medicare benefits for seniors will be cut by $36 million starting in fiscal year 2022 and every year for the next 10 years.

I include in the Record a letter that confirms the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 will cause billions of dollars of cuts to Medicare. U.S. Congress, Congressional Budget Office, Washington, DC, February 25, 2021. Re: Potential Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Effects of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Hon. Kevin McCarthy, Republican Leader, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Leader McCarthy: This letter responds to your request for information about whether a sequestration (or cancellation of budgetary resources) could be triggered in accordance with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 (PAYGO) if the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (as posted on the website of the House Committee on Rules on February 19, 2021) was enacted. CBO estimates that the legislation would increase deficits by $1.9 trillion over the 2021-2031 period.

Under statutory PAYGO, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is required to maintain 5- and 10-year scorecards that report the estimated cumulative changes in revenues and outlays generated by new legislation. If either scorecard indicates a net increase in the deficit, OMB is required to order a sequestration to eliminate the overage. The balance used to determine the amount of a sequestration is not the projected increase in the deficit for that particular year. Rather, the PAYGO scorecards identify average annual effects of legislation over the 5- and 10-year periods and assign that average to each year in the period. Before an average is calculated, any current-year effects are combined with those for the budget year.

CBO has analyzed the implications of enacting the American Rescue Plan, which, by CBO's estimate, would increase deficits by $1.9 trillion (including current-year effects) over both a 5-year period and a 10-year period, assuming that no further legislation to offset that increase was enacted. In accordance with the PAYGO law, OMB would record the average annual deficit on its scorecard, showing deficit increases of $381 billion per year for five years, if its estimate of the act's effects was the same as CBO's. If the bill was enacted before the end of the calendar year, that amount would be added to the PAYGO scorecard, which currently carries no balances for 2021 or any subsequent years.

Without enactment of subsequent legislation that would offset the deficit increase, waive the recordation of the bill's effects on the scorecard, or otherwise mitigate or eliminate the statutory PAYGO requirements, OMB would be required to issue a sequestration order within 15 days of the end of the Congressional session to reduce spending in fiscal year 2022 by $381 billion, CBO estimates. However, the PAYGO law limits reductions in Medicare spending to four percentage points (or an estimated $36 billion for that year), leaving $345 billion to be sequestered from the remaining mandatory accounts. Because the law entirely exempts many large accounts, including low-income programs and Social Security, in CBO's estimation, the annual resources available from which OMB must draw would total between $80 billion and $90 billion--significantly less than the amount that would be required to be sequestered.

Because the required reduction in spending would exceed the estimated amount of available resources in each year over the next 10 years, in the absence of further legislation, OMB would be unable to fully implement the outlay reductions required by the PAYGO law.

If you wish further details on this estimate, we will be pleased to provide them. The CBO staff contact is Avi Lerner. Sincerely, Phillip L. Swagel, Director.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, House Republicans have filed hundreds and hundreds of amendments. All but two were voted down.

This is clearly a partisan plan that is the wrong plan at the wrong time for all the wrong reasons. If you take out the direct checks to Americans, almost half of all the money that is in this bill will not be spent until fiscal year 2022 or later. This is not imminent.

It is the wrong plan at the wrong time and, we know, for all the wrong reasons.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of Missouri. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source